Rough Week
This has not been the best of weeks. I have been an emotional wreck all week, which is bad in a house that doesn't allow that. My entire life, all I've ever heard when I've been upset is that there is nothing to cry about. Well, when you sink into a depression every February during high school, there most certainly is. I have always dug out of it relatively quickly, but I've never had a rough a year. I had all my grandparents until my senior year when my mom's stepfather died. We'd been told our entire lives that grandpa was dying. I was 17. That's a lot of processing time, it seemed natural.
Two years ago January, my father was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. I don't think I ever said anything here. He went through 6 rounds of chemo and would appear to be cured.
In June, my brother got married and my mom's eldest sister (our favorite one, which sounds mean but is the truth) didn't come. She wouldn't say why, just that she'd tell mom afterwards. She'd been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. At this point, I was pissed at the word cancer. I still am. I don't want to hear it. It's taken too much.
In February of this year, my dad's best friend (whom I'd called uncle my whole life and who we live next door to) died. I think it was emphysema, but he too had been sick for quite some time and we all knew it wouldn't be long. It was sad and I miss him, but I don't feel that it's the cause of this slump.
In May, after some conversations with her sister (and days when she wasn't allowed to), my mom decided that she had to go to Canada to say goodbye. At first, it sounded like my mom would go and my cousin (her son) would go on his trip leaving my mom to watch his kids at their grandmother's house. Quickly, that was gone. I offered to stay with the kids for a week if they would fly me up because I knew how important this trip was to them. My mom got to Canada the week before I did, and left the week before I left. We saw each other once, for fifteen minutes during that time. When I was at my aunt's saying goodbye. It was the hardest fifteen minutes of my life because I had been told I wasn't allowed to be upset in front of her.
When I got back down to the city with my cousin, his wife and daughter were having a conversation about how grandma was going to die and L, my 10 yr old cousin was putting on a brave face, saying that it was okay because grandma would be in a better place and out of pain, etc. Her mother asked if she was "okay with grandma dying" and I fell apart saying that I wasn't. I still cannot think of that moment with falling apart.
I came home on July 8. My aunt, the planner, died the 12th. Everyone was in their place. She felt it was okay to go. While I'm glad she's out of pain, it hurts. It hurts a lot. Every day.
Tonight I wasn't sure if I could drive home because the tears came with a song on the radio. The other night, I said something about four months and fell apart. And cried until 1230 in the morning. Thank god for my twitter friends, because they were there when I was crying. They've been there. They've been the ONLY ones to tell me it's okay to cry (well, my cousin's wife did too, but she's 3000 miles away and I haven't talked to her since July 12). It's nice to have built a community. It's why I needed this back so badly.
I'll be okay. I'll pull through. I may have to go talk to a doctor, with money I don't have and don't know where it'll come from, but I'll be fine. Someday. I don't think it'll ever stop hurting though. How do you lose your favorite person on Earth and not hurt?
